Maps

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The entrance to the shelter consists of a bunker and a control room to the immediate north of the bunker. In front of the bunker is a digger with a door lying in front of it, linked to its bucket by cables. This used to be the door to the bunker but was pulled off by the angry mob trying to get in. The bunker entrance has many skeletons in it, with two that appear to have been guards and the rest possibly part of the mob. The door to the shelter is controlled by a terminal in a security building just to the north of the entrance.

The shelter itself consists of multiple layers including a gym, sleeping quarters, and a maintenance room with a crafting bench and armor crafting station. Initially the door will be locked and the Sole Survivor must activate an unlocked terminal in the nearby control room.

While in the bunker, several holodisks can be found documenting the stay in the bunker itself. From the moment they entered the bunker, the mayor and his wife address their concerns about the food stock and whether they would be able to survive the initial eighty days after the bombs dropped. As the Sole Survivor wanders deeper into the bunker, the remains of the wife and child can be found in the maintenance room, indicating their unfortunate demise.

It is made apparent to the player that the mayor was extremely corrupt. As the player goes further down into the structure, there are holotapes confirming that he had constructed a luxurious nuclear shelter at the tax payers' expense, answering to his wife's every demand, such as a minibar, a fireplace, a home theater, and even a full-sized gym, while many people were simply left for dead outside. After the bombs fell, a mob of angry citizens gathered outside the shelter, demanding entrance and blood. It is learned through a holotape that the mayor committed suicide, apparently by dropping a radio into the bathtub with himself. His goal was to have his wife produce his corpse to placate the angry crowd, in hopes they would spare her and his child. However, the crowd stormed the shelter before she even knew of his demise. They killed all the guards, and finally slaughtered both her and the child.

There is a button upstairs in the gym that unlocks a shortcut back to the entrance. Alternatively, the player can take a right turn when exiting the elevator (gas leak) and use a pipe to traverse to the lower level.

When the player enters the shelter the only hostiles at first will be the three laser turrets. As soon as the player sets foot in the gym, synths will appear throughout the shelter and occupy it. If not friendly with the Institute, one can fight through all of them back to the entrance or bypass a majority of them with the pipe in the gym. Entering the rough tunnel through the southwest corner of the gym will cause a deathclaw to enter through a hole in the ceiling as the player approaches the light.

Astoundingly Awesome Tales #1 (+1 HP/minute), found in the room just past the bathroom containing the mayor's skeleton at the end of the hallway. It is in the same room as a safe, on a small table next to the bed.

Fat Man, found in the cave branching off from the gym. Approaching the Fat Man will trigger the spawning of a leveled deathclaw and it is recommended that the player character be ready to deal with it in close quarters, though it will not follow through small apertures, e.g. the pipe.

The laser turrets, for some reason, shoot the blue beams of Institute-affiliated weaponry instead of the usual red ones. While this may serve as subtle foreshadowing to what awaits the Sole Survivor if they delve too deep into the bunker, it remains unclear how Institute laser tech found its way into a pre-War installation centuries before its time. It is also never made clear why the Institute forces show up at the shelter in the first place.

The turrets will not be hostile towards the player character if they are on good terms with the Institute.

The synths spawn regardless of whether the Institute is still active or not, making their origin and their purpose even more of a mystery.

A teddy bear can be found in the children's bedroom with wooden blocks next to it spelling "I AM D".

The following is based on unverified behind the scenes information and has not been confirmed by canon sources.

The shelter may be based on the Massachusetts State Emergency Operations Center [1], located in the same approximate location (next to Natick). It is a Cold War era bunker designed to withstand the blast from a potential nearby nuclear detonation. It's still in use as the headquarters of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency located in Framingham.